Emergencies

Maggie lives in apartment 2B, across the hall, and she has decided we’re friends because our mailboxes are next to each other and once I lent her a bottle opener. Now, she knocks every time there’s something she can’t fix, like a broken zipper or a stuck jar lid. I haven’t figured out how to say no, so most evenings there’s a chance she’ll show up, half-smiling, holding out the next small disaster.

Tonight, it’s her smoke alarm. She’s waving a dish towel and looking at me like she’s already sorry. I follow her across the hall. The smoke alarm is shrieking, lights blinking. She says she was trying to make popcorn in a pan but “things got out of hand.” I stand on a stool and twist the alarm free. The silence is instant and oddly deep.

“Sorry,” she says. She always apologizes in triplets. “Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” I say. I mean it, but also I don’t. I don’t know how to be alone with someone else’s guilt.

She hands me a box of instant pudding as a thank-you. “It’s butterscotch. Do you like butterscotch?” She’s already opening her silverware drawer, as though we’ll be eating it together. 

—— 

We sit at the table, pudding in matching mugs. She asks, “What would you do in a real emergency?”

I think about it for a moment. “I’d probably freeze.”

“Me, too.” She nods, satisfied of my answer. “Or maybe call my mother.”

She tells me her mother works in an office where they have tornado drills, even though there’s never been a tornado in her town. “She practically just stands in the copy room and covers her head with a binder.” Maggie mimes this with her hands, and I imagine her mother, heels tucked under the copier, trying not to wrinkle her skirt.

“What about your Dad?” I ask. 

She shrugs and looks out the window awhile. “California,” she says, as if it suffices to explain it all. 

—— 

She shows me the popcorn, looking burnt and sad in the pan, like a bad omen. “It’s the kernels,” she assures me. “They’re old.” She blames the food, but I think maybe she just likes creating those small failures.

She asks if I want to see her balcony garden. I say yes because it’s always easier than saying no. We squeeze past her bike and her stack of library books. 

Out on the balcony, she points to three pots sitting on different corners: basil, mint, and something unidentified, maybe cilantro. “I keep forgetting to water them,” she says, poking the dirt. “Fortunately, they don’t complain.”

The city sounds are muffled up here, like someone pressed pause on the street. I realize I haven’t seen this side of the building before, which feels weirdly intimate in a way. She says she likes sitting here after work, sometimes with wine, sometimes just the plants. “You can almost hear them growing,” she says. “Except the mint, which I believe only grows when I’m not looking.”

She asks if I want a cutting to take home. “Even if you forget to water it, it’ll forgive you always.” 

—— 

Back inside, she shows me her “emergency kit.” It’s a shoebox with a cracked lid: a flashlight with weak batteries, a packet of honey, a single sock, matches, a postcard of a dog in sunglasses, and an old bus schedule.

“I don’t drive,” she says. “In case you were wondering.”

“I guessed.”

She adds the pudding box to the kit, as if to apologize for her last minor disaster. 

—— 

Back in my apartment, the silence feels staged. I try the mint cutting in a glass of water and imagine its roots stretching, looking for something solid. I watch TV on mute, just to see if the stories make sense without words.

My phone buzzes. Sorry about earlier, Maggie says. Thank you for the help.

I reply: No problem.

She sends another text after a minute: Do you want the rest of the mint? 

—— 

In the morning, I see her in the hall, struggling to balance a laundry basket on one hip, keys in her mouth. She drops a sock. I pick it up and place it in the basket. “Emergency?” I ask.

“Not yet,” she says, smiling. “Hopefully.”

We ride the elevator together. She asks if I want to come join her friends to trivia night at the corner bar tonight. I tell her I’m terrible at games. “Me too,” she says. “But I like watching others who are not.”

I say I’ll think about it, which means yes. She hugs me and places a kiss on my cheek. She doesn’t realize she’s dropped her keys on her way out.

——

That night, the bar is bright and sticky. Maggie orders fries for the table, even though it’s just the two of us. I don’t ask about her friends and she doesn’t mention them. She knows all the answers about state capitals but none about music or movies. When thetrivia host asks, “What is the most commonly stolen food in the world?” she writes “cheese” without hesitation. She turns out right.

“I read it somewhere,” she says, shoving a fry into her mouth. I can tell she’s trying hard to suppress her pride. “Emergency facts for emergency freaks.”

When we arrive at our apartment building, she asks if I want to keep the rest of the fries for later. “In case,” she says, extending the greasy paper bag. I thank her as I take it from her hands. I don’t tell her there’s a smudge of mayo on the corner of her lips.

——

At home, I shelve away the fries in the fridge, next to the mint, both looking a little wilted, both still worth saving. I take out the mint and place it in a new pot, ready for the next step in our relationship. Then I sit by the window, phone face up, the screen dark. Outside, someone laughs. A siren blares. The usual rhythm of the night.

I don’t expect an emergency tonight, but I leave the hallway light on before sleep. Just in case she knocks. Just in case she mistakes my door for hers again. Just in case the next emergency is all mine.